


Gallow's Bird

by mimesere



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1992795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories and storms, in the Caribbean instead of the World's End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gallow's Bird

The Caribbean being what it is, it is truly no surprise when the _Lady Anne_ finds herself harboring in Port Royal to wait out the storm.

"These things, they happen, yeah?" says her captain and Jim shrugs, drinks a bit. Storms do happen, often enough, and The Gallow's Bird is rowdy, the drink is good, and the food is better. There are worse places to be. The world's end, for one, and it is a queer habit of the vagabond that tale telling should be so high a priority when the thunder is rolling and rain beats a constant rat-a-tat against glass and wood.

There's a story on the tip of Jim's tongue. There is a tavern at the end of the world filled with all manner of people... He drowns it in rum until the urge to speak passes and he is content to listen. This, he thinks, is his last voyage.

"And I'm telling you he didn't die."

Jim hunches down into his seat and pulls his glass closer.

There are a pair of men at the bar arguing loudly. One tilts his head to the side and says, "And I am telling you that he was hanged by the neck until dead and his body left to join wind and sea."

"Oh yeah," says the other. "Then why is the fort haunted?"

"The fort is not bloody haunted, you superstitious wanker. It's just...old."

"Yeah? I've seen him."

"You have not!"

"I have!"

"When?"

"When I first moved here, aye? The lads on the crew wagered that I'd not last a night in the old fort."

"How much did they wager?"

"Enough to make it worth my while," the one says snappily. "I'm all alone there, right? Bloody moonless night it was, black as the devil's arse, and cold. Cold, here in the bloody damned tropics! And it's gettin' darker and colder and damned unnerving it was. I'm about to fall asleep when I hear them, footsteps echoing down the hall."

The noise in the tavern begins to die down and Jim fancies he can hear the tap tap tap of footsteps on stone. 

"And you followed, of course."

"Of course. I followed the sound down the hall and up the stairs into the courtyard, which is an absolute hell of a place on a moonless night. Rocks everywhere and I fell some, but kept following because it's a ghost, a bleedin' ghost and a lot of money on the line. Up more stairs to the walls with the rocks below and the waves. Right up to the edge he went and every step like painting a picture. Tall man, our commodore, back like an iron rod. Posh coat, silly hat."

"You've seen a picture."

"Not then, I hadn't!"

A laugh and a drawing back. Footsteps fade back into the chatter and bustle of a tavern at night, but Jim keeps listening. He's got naught else to do and it's a more interesting story than the time his good captain had a bit of an interesting time in Singapore.

"He looks like his picture, right enough," says the man. 

His friend leans in a bit. "You were drunk, mate. They were having a go at you."

"I saw him. Right up to the edge and he just stood there with his hands behind his back looking out over the sea like it was bright as day." His voice drops. "I thought he was going to jump and I truly didn't think he was a suicide. Didn't seem the type."

"What, exactly, does Port Royal's ghost, one of many I might add, have to do with a dead pirate?"

"He wouldn't be haunting if he'd caught him. That's what a ghost is. That last bit of unfinished business." He coughs, embarrassed. "Or so I was told."

"Unfinished business."

"Yes."

"You think the commodore is haunting the fort because one pirate got away. A pirate who was hanged by the neck until dead and left to rot. That pirate. The one who did not, in fact, get away."

"He got away and was not, in fact, hanged by the neck until dead. The commodore's waiting to catch him."

"He is not."

"He is!"

"The ghost told you, did he?"

Jim sighs. Not a bit of a tale left, save that between two friends. A shame, really. The barmaid leans over him and pours more rum into his cup. "They're fools, they are."

"Eh?" says Jim. 

"Everyone knows as the commodore died a-pining for the governor's daughter," she tells him. "That wall is where he proposed and was rejected in front of the entire town. Fine man that he was, he wished her well and never married." 

"Oh," he says. "Truly?"

"Really and truly. S'what I call love." She winks at him. "Not this pale stuff you get now."

"And the pirate?"

"He wasn't hanged," she tells him. "Fine bit of a rescue and a daring escape."

"So he did escape, then," says Jim.

"Oh, aye. Got clean away."

"And your commodore?"

"Never caught him. There are stories, of course." She shrugs. "Near things, the lot of them. But Captain Jack was never hanged in Port Royal, that much I know."

Jim slips a coin onto her tray and nods at the empty seat next to him. She glances quickly at the bar and settles herself down. "Only for a few minutes, mind."

"The time will fly," he tells her. "The pirate?"

"Bit of a legend here. Escaped twice, commandeered a ship of the fleet, and rescued the governor's daughter. Fine man himself, or so I'm told." She tilts her head toward the window and the sign creaking steadily in the wind. "This fine establishment is named for the occasion he escaped with the noose still tied around his neck."

"So he was hanged."

"Just a bit." She glances back at the bar. Whatever she sees is reassuring, because she turns back to him with a bright smile. "It is true that the commodore spent the rest of his career chasing after Captain Jack and that he never caught him. But it's also true that he died pining for his lost love."

"She died, then?"

"Worse," the barmaid tells him. "Married. And happily."

"Ah," says Jim. "Terrible luck for him."

"I think it's romantic," she says. 

Jim nods and pats her on the knee. "Him pining away and she happily married. Truly, the stuff of the finest romances."

"You're laughing at me."

He grins. "Just a bit."

"Everyone's got a story," she says. "Ask around." She smiles again at him and is up moving toward the bar before he can say anything else.

"The rain's letting up," says the good captain. "We'll be out on the morning tide."

"Good," says Jim. A thought, and he stands up, reaching for his coat. "I'll see you at the ship, aye?"

"Hunting ghosts, lad?" He laughs at Jim's nod. "Mind that you don't get caught."

"I have to see," says Jim. 

"And if I were twenty years younger, I'd have to see with you. Go. Find your ghost." 

The good captain really is a good man and Jim is glad that this will be the ship that he ends on. A good enough way to remember the sea, and him with a sweetheart waiting for him in London. The streets are slick with rain and Jim picks his way carefully back to the harbor. He remembers seeing what remained of the old fort there and he's fairly certain he can navigate his way up to it.

Which he does in good time, though he is soaked through when he reaches the courtyard in its center. He hears nothing strange but it seems that there's a shape up on the wall where there should be nothing but stone. It's a tree, he tells himself. A fallen bit of masonry. A rock skitters out from beneath his foot and he stumbles, going to one knee on the stair. Jim curses, a bit in Dutch and a bit of the Spanish, and when he looks up the rain blurs his sight so that it seems very much like a man standing there, looking out over the sea.

He eases forward, up one step and another, until he's reached the top. The view is fantastic, water stretching out to touch the sky so that it feels like he could just be a part of it if he took one more step. He steals a glance at his companion. Ghostly? Yes. Very much so. 

But smiling. A small thing, almost missed, and the commodore's eyes never waver from the horizon. Jim closes his eyes and imagines that he can hear the bustle of sailors making ready to sail, the muster of soldiers in the courtyard. 

When he opens his eyes, the rain seems like to have paused, taken a breath so that he could see. A speck on the horizon, visible even this night in the middle of a storm. 

"Excellent," says the commodore and Jim's heart seizes in his chest. 

When he looks back, the ghost is gone and the ship with him.


End file.
